There are those angry last times: "That's the last time I'm telling you! I won't repeat it!"
Some of them are quite moving: "That was the last time we kissed."
Some are poignant: "That was the last time I saw him; he died the next day."
Others are vague: "When was the last time I didn't have dessert?"
Il y a même des dernières fois ringardes mais touchantes…
In short, there are 50 shades of last time. So, since we're short on time, today I'll only talk about the "almost last times" (the PDFs). PDFs are final times that aren't entirely certain, but still somewhat probable. We become aware of this as we get older.
Is this the last time I'll see this friend, who is sick, elderly, and lives so far away? Maybe… not sure… but maybe still…
Is this the last time I reach the top of this mountain, which I love so much, but which has now become a little too high for my legs, a little too steep for my heart?
Is this the last time I feel desirable in the eyes of a stranger I just met?
Yes, after a certain age, how can we know if what we are experiencing is the last or almost the last time?
Perhaps this nuance between true last time (VDF) and almost last time (PDF) is not so important.
Sensitivity to DF, PDF, VDF, is often associated with age, with the age that brings the awareness of finitude, the age of reckoning: "how many springs, how many summers, do I have left to live in good health? how many more times will I be able to contemplate the trees in bloom?"
Yes, the real question isn't VDF, PDF, or DF, but: how do we inhabit this sensitivity to the last times? How can we ensure that this poisoned gift of awareness of finitude becomes a gift rather than a poison?
On peut s’abandonner au pompeux chic, comme Chateaubriand dans ses Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe :
« All of us, as long as we exist, possess only the present moment; the one that follows belongs to God: there are always two chances of not finding the friend we leave behind: our death or theirs. How many men have never climbed back up the stairs they descended?
We can tip into the realm of agonizing tragedy, as Cioran did in his Notebooks :
“Gare du Nord. A clock there shows the minutes: 4:43 PM – At that minute, I thought that it would never return, that it had vanished forever, that it had sunk into the anonymous mass of the irrevocable. That the theory of eternal return seemed futile and unfounded to me. Everything disappears forever. I will never see that moment again. Everything is unique and insignificant.”
And then we can be moved, smile gently at these last and almost last times. Be touched by them and grow from them.
As we grow old, all our experiences are inevitably marked by the seal of the last time, like a haunting watermark of lucidity: we are only passing through, time passes, our happiness will disappear, and so will we, and the people we love; small consolation: the people we don't love will also disappear…
In my case, after having greatly troubled me at one point in my life (at the end of my student years), it no longer makes me want to cry, just to savor the moment. You know what's going on in my head?
"If this is to be the last time, don't spoil it with tears or anxieties, but smile and rejoice, my friend. Say thank you to life, thank you to friends, thank you to all of you who loved me and whom I loved. And remember: what a joy it has been to have lived through all this!"
Illustration: When was the last time you admired cherry blossoms? (Sakura & Fuji Yama).
PS : cet article reprend ma chronique du 8 avril 2025 dans l’émission de France Inter, Grand Bien Vous Fasse.